Table Lamp Circuit Best Practise

[DanDare]

Should a table lamp circuit - ie 2A or 5A sockets controlled by a dimmer - be a fused spur from a power ring or a (fused?) spur from a lighting circuit? (It's not easy to give it it's own MCB in the consumer unit in this case).

The dimmer controlling it will be 2 gang, with ceiling lights.

I can see pros and cons: from power the con is that the dimmer would require 2 MCBs to isolate and could catch out the careless. From lighting, the whole lot would go out is there was a fault, and it could get close to 6A with other lighting on the same floor, plus, it would be easy to isolate the power circuit and expect the 2A/5A outlets to be off too...

But what's the 'proper' thing to do??

Thanks!!

 

[dhutch]

Im not an electrician but Ive always assumed they would/are wired from the lighting circuit.

One other consideration, do 2/5amp sockets need rcd protection?


Daniel

 

[OwainDIYer]

it could be either.

It would be best practice to put the switches on separate circuits on separate faceplates/back boxes. However this is not a requirement of the regs.

Especially as one of the switches is fed from a power circuit, ensure that the consumer unit is labelled and also put a label inside the back box drawing attention to the circuit arrangements.

Anyone working on the wiring should be testing for dead anyway, but they might not test all conductors.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

From lighting, the whole lot would go out is there was a fault,

But that applies to any lighting circuit, whether or not you have plug-in lights.

Don't understand what you're worried about...

and it could get close to 6A with other lighting on the same floor

Could it?

How? That's about 1.4kW of lighting, what kind of table lamps are these?

plus, it would be easy to isolate the power circuit and expect the 2A/5A outlets to be off too...

It's often easy to do something stupid.

But what's the 'proper' thing to do??

Neither is right or wrong.

Having lights in the same room on different circuits can be a good thing.